DPRK at night and economic growth: The second image obtained from Aid Watch compares growth in electricity coverage at night between the two Koreas. This is the first image I have seen like this which makes side-by-side comparisons:

Click image for larger version

I overlaid these images to Google Earth to determine areas of relative growth and decline. Surprisingly, Pyongyang and Chongjin showed dimmer and smaller electricity signals, indicating lighting was more prolific in 1992 than in 2008. I would have expected their electricity signals to be just as, if not more, pronounced in 2008.

The areas of growth, where electricity signals are more (modestly) pronounced, include Kaesong (개성), Huichon (희천), Songgan (성간), Thaechon (태천), and Anju (안주). Most of these are somewhat expected since they have received much publicized foreign (Kaesong) and domestic investment, particularly in power station development.

Also worth noting are the growth of lighting in South Korea and China.

Photoshop Fun: The third set of interesting images come from a Chinese reader who sends along these images from Korea magazine, the monthly picture magazine published by the DPRK (See e-version here). The images have been altered to give the impression of plenty. Below see images of photoshopped goats, swimmers, and bread:

This entry was posted
on Friday, January 28th, 2011 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Domestic publication, Electricity, Energy, Food.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

very cool post. thanks for sharing. there aren’t many facebook connections in the sahara, or the rainforest either.

Jesterj

You do realize that there were and are massive power shortages from lack of energy imports with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. These photographs were taken when there was one such outage, as evidenced by the higher electrical signature, but much lower GDP of China vs. DPRK in the late eighties. Surprising to see the South have that much increase in electricity. Their economy has seen mediocre growth since the U.S./Japan refused to give preferential treatment after the 97 crises. I guess any country can industrialize with enough free credit, trade incentives, capital accumulation.